Just when you think every hemi’ powered Mopar from the classic muscle car era has to have been found and restored, something like this pops up! The 1967 Dodge Coronet R/T in London, Kentucky lost its original motor and transmission, but that seems to matter less and less over time. Magical everything-matching hemi’ cars fetch such a high price that even clones made from original six-cylinder cars have sold for $80,000 or more. At least this one began life as a legitimate 426 hemi’ R/T, according to the seller. It comes to market here on eBay where at least five bidders have teased the market value above $6500 with over a week left in the auction. Even without the factory power-train, this Coronet should fetch a much higher number before the auction closes.

Squint your eyes and picture the original 425 HP Elephant motor. While 425 seemed to be the highest number that manufacturers dared to advertise, Hemmings made about 460 HP on a dynamometer with a stock street hemi’, and nearly 500 HP through headers. Wow! The 426 cid (7.0L) mill featured hemispherical combustion chambers. The word “hemispherical” may have mostly lived in the collegiate halls of geography and astronomy departments before Chrysler brought its first-generation hemi-head motor to market in 1951. Aside from looking super-cool with spark plug wires running through the valve covers, the motors became well-known for packing prodigious power. The second-generation hemi powered mostly racing cars starting in 1964 before the “Street Hemi” became available in the Coronet and other models for model year 1966.

Ah, the bench seat, perfect for when your special someone wants to slide up close for a friendly ride home or watching the submarine races. I owned a ’66 Coronet that came with its original owner’s manual. The work “hemi” did not appear in the manual, but everywhere the various engines were mentioned, the “426” had asterisks with some sort of special note at the bottom of the page describing how the motor required special treatment during warm-up and other conditions. Even a novice got the idea that you didn’t just order a hemi’ to pull a travel trailer, but more to convert tire rubber into smoke and challenges into cash on a regular basis.

A missing fender tag certainly adds a question mark to the the car’s history. It’s unlikely that tires this skinny spent much time on the R/T (Road/Track) when it moved under its own power. Back in the day you knew well enough to bring your A-game and more than factory parts if you planned to bag an Elephant-powered Mopar. The black primer and Jesus bumper sticker look AOK to me, but let’s pop some glass in there; I prefer my muscle cars water-tight. I’ll defer to our Mopar experts on the ease of validating an original hemi car based on what’s shown and described here. Real or not, this reasonably solid Coronet deserves to fry the tires in anger again before more decades slip by. What’s your top dollar on this claimed original hemi’ Coronet?